Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe on Thursday admitted to advising several of his former aides to seek political asylum abroad amid criminal investigations for corruption and the illegal wiretapping of government opponents.
Uribe, in an interview with his former Vice President Francisco Santos, explained that he had “suggested to several” of his former staff that they seek political asylum abroad because Colombia’s justice system has “a problem” guaranteeing a fair trial to former members of the Uribe administration.
Panama granted political asylum to Uribe’s former intelligence chief after Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office opened an investigation into her role in the illegal wiretapping of government opponents by state intelligence agency DAS. Various former Uribe staff are suspected of involvement in the same scandal.
Other former members of the two Uribe administrations are suspected of having bribed lawmakers to secure a Congress majority for a constitutional change needed to allow the former president to run for a second term in 2006.